Bill has a long list of brain-melting stipulations.

Each year, state legislatures play host to a variety of bills that would interfere with science education. Most of these are variations on a boilerplate intended to get supplementary materials into classrooms criticizing evolution and climate change (or to protect teachers who do). They generally don't mention creationism, but the clear intent is to sneak religious content into the science classrooms, as evidenced by previous bills introduced by the same lawmakers. Most of them die in the legislature (although the opponents of evolution have seentwo successes).

The efforts are common enough that we don't generally report on them. But every now and then a bill comes along that veers off this script. Late last month, the Missouri House started considering one that deviates in staggering ways. Instead of being quiet about its intent, it redefines science, provides a clearer definition of intelligent design than any of the idea's advocates ever have, and it mandates equal treatment of the two. In the process, it mangles things so badly that teachers would be prohibited from discussing Mendel's Laws.

Although even the Wikipedia entry for scientific theory includes definitions provided by the world's most prestigious organizations of scientists, the bill's sponsor Rick Brattin has seen fit to invent his own definition. And it's a head-scratcher: "'Scientific theory,' an inferred explanation of incompletely understood phenomena about the physical universe based on limited knowledge, whose components are data, logic, and faith-based philosophy." The faith or philosophy involved remain unspecified.

Brattin also mentions philosophy when he redefines "hypothesis" as "a scientific theory reflecting a minority of scientific opinion which may lack acceptance because it is a new idea, contains faulty logic, lacks supporting data, has significant amounts of conflicting data, or is philosophically unpopular." The reason for that becomes obvious when he turns to intelligent design, which he defines as a hypothesis. Presumably, he thinks it's only a hypothesis because it's philosophically unpopular, since his bill would ensure it ends up in the classrooms.

Intelligent design (ID) is roughly the concept that life is so complex that it requires a designer, but even its most prominent advocates have often been a bit wary about defining its arguments all that precisely. Not so with Brattin—he lists 11 concepts that are part of ID. Some of these are old-fashioned creationist claims, like the suggestion that mutations lead to "species degradation" and a lack of transitional fossils. But it also has some distinctive twists, like the claim that common features, usually used to infer evolutionary relatedness, are actually a sign of parts re-use by a designer.

The bill eventually defines "standard science" as "knowledge disclosed in a truthful and objective manner and the physical universe without any preconceived philosophical demands concerning origin or destiny." It then demands that all science taught in Missouri classrooms be standard science. But there are some problems with this that become apparent immediately. The bill demands anything taught as scientific law to have "no known exceptions." That would rule out teaching Mendel's law, which has a huge variety of exceptions, such as when two genes are linked together on the same chromosome.

But the intent of the bill becomes crystal clear a bit later when it turns to evolution:

If scientific theory concerning biological origin is taught in a course of study, biological evolution and biological intelligent design shall be taught. Other scientific theory or theories of origin may be taught. If biological intelligent design is taught, any proposed identity of the intelligence responsible for earth's biology shall be verifiable by present-day observation or experimentation and teachers shall not question, survey, or otherwise influence student belief in a nonverifiable identity within a science course.

In other words, equal time for the leading scientific idea and intelligent design, but never mention who the designer might be. And not just equal time, but equal pages; the bill literally mandates that "course textbooks contain approximately an equal number of pages of relevant material teaching each viewpoint." Brattin is at least aware no textbooks actually have anything on "biological intelligent design," so he wants the state to identify "nine individuals who are knowledgeable of science and intelligent design" to create supplementary materials for use until the textbook publishers get in line.

Given this confused mess, the bill probably has very little chance of passing. Still, prior to the passage of the Louisiana Science Education Act, it seemed unlikely any of these bills would become law.

Being from Kansas City, Missouri I sometimes feel the rural politicians from both Kansas and Missouri are having some kind of contest to see who can embarrass me more. This definitely seems to give Missouri the lead.

As someone who grew up idolizing Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan, that such a bill exists is downright depressing. Maybe there is a need for legislation mandating that schools do a better job teaching what scientific theory is- it seems to me that folks behind bills of this nature have not had a decent exposure to science and scientific theory.

And that's why I feel hopeless when these things come up. If there are more of "them" than there are of "us"...

I don't think that's true. What they are though, is far more noisy.. and nosy.

I think most people that claim to believe to be religious are hypocrites. Obviously not people like the guy that wrote this bill. But if everyone really believed all this non sense there'd be far more church antecedence than there is.

Intelligent design is a perfectly valid hypothesis that should be taught in order to offer students the opportunity to evaluate the ideas on their own and make a properly-informed decision regarding their own beliefs.

And 3 is close enough to pi, use it instead.

</sarcasm, because some dunce would miss the obvious and rage out>

NavyGothic wrote:

I'm sure the Republican leadership will issue a strong statement condemning such wasteful government spending. Any moment now.

I've decided I want to be a scientist too. Let's see, time for some empirical research:

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1

Oh, so that's how the Earth was made. Let's see what else:

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. Genesis 1:2

Wow, so that's how light works. Two big discoveries in one day! Should I go for the threepeat!?

Then God said, “Let us make man[h] in our image, after our likeness. Genesis 1:26

Well hoo-whee, look at that; that's how humans came to be! I'll be; that's three major scientific discoveries in less than three minutes. Science is easy! Thanks for electricity, vaccines, and smartphones Bible!

I have no idea why it should be wrong or controversial to discuss intelligent design in a classroom (though it seems to rest as many of its arguments in the field of philosophy of science as in strict science), but you don't have to redefine scientific theory to do that. Simply teach it as competing view that people have put forward either in contrast to or in complement to evolution; don't go mucking about with science in general though, you don't even need to.

it shouldnt be talked about in science class maybe a debait club or philosophy class science is there to present documented facts about the world we live in and theory's that actually have evidence.

I think they should introduce a bill support the theory of unintelligent design, with my sole evidence being this bill. Equal textbook pages??? What is there to say, some people believe that the evolution of species isn't true, instead proposing that somebody (unnamed of course) made it all. I believe that anybody can believe anything, but any same person needs to be able to see that this ambiguous stuff they are trying to get in textbooks is plain nuts.

There is something called private school( or even homeschool) where you can have your child learn anything you want, even the idea that the Earth is flat!

There is a small minority of Christians that get they aren't privileged, and that public schools aren't a discounted Christian school.............

Time and time again, we are reminded that even God makes mistakes e.g. Ohio State Buckeyes, Texas, Windows ME, iOS Maps. Missouri was already on the list, but moved up a few spots. And even though God doesn't point out who the idiots are, freewill and free speech help weed them out.

I have no idea why it should be wrong or controversial to discuss intelligent design in a classroom (though it seems to rest as many of its arguments in the field of philosophy of science as in strict science), but you don't have to redefine scientific theory to do that. Simply teach it as competing view that people have put forward either in contrast to or in complement to evolution; don't go mucking about with science in general though, you don't even need to.

Because it is not science. By any scientific measure it fails, and thus should be moved aside and forgotten. It is only held on to by the religious right because it sounds better than Creationism.

Discussing it in a social studies or religion class would be pertinent and appropriate. If only to point out how, for example, such namby-pamby hippy-circle religions as the Catholic Church have accepted evolution and moved on...